As the dust of an almost bewildering media storm finally begins to settle around Breyten Breytenbach’s Boklied, Charl Blignaut asks what the reaction to the play means One should have smelled it from a mile off, really, the faint whiff of scandal rising from the Boklied posters mingling with the cloying fragrance of potpourri and […]

FRIDAY, 4.00PM: FORMER Sarfu vice-president Brian van Rooyen, author of the dossier that spurred a commission of inquiry into the South African Rugby Football Association’s affairs, said he will urge the government to appeal the Pretoria High Court’s decision to set the commission aside. “This decision doesn’t vindicate Sarfu by any means,” he said, and […]

Malcolm Hacksley SOLSTICE by Don Maclennan (Snailpress/Scottish Cultural Press, R49) Don Maclennan is intensely respectful towards words, his own and those of others, and uses them remarkably sparingly. The subjects and ideas in these poems call forth a spontaneous response, but the Maclennan response is rigorous in its self-control. Perhaps it is true that “songs […]

Jarvis Cocker is a latter-day folk hero in Britain. He talks to Caroline Sullivan about his and Pulp’s new album Jarvis Cocker is one of rock’s great kitchen-sink lyricists, so it was fitting that our first meeting took place in a kitchen. It was late 1992, at a party in a south London council flat. […]

Bongani Siqoko Soccer Orlando Pirates midfield sensation Steve “Chippa” Lekoelea could see his childhood dreams become a reality this year. Lekoelea, who is gunning for a place in the Bafana Bafana squad to take part in the World Cup finals in France, could also land a contract with Dutch football giants PSV Eidenhoven. “When my […]

Lynda Gledhill At Coronation hospital in Coronationville on the West Rand, tiny infants, born premature and just days old, lie inside incubators struggling to breathe as nurses check their vital signs and mothers sit by their sides. Outside this ward, the hospital is struggling to overcome new hurdles and re-emerge as a viable, respected medical […]

Charlene Smith Minnie Mouse, Mickey Mouse, flying ducks and cheaply made chintzy porcelain with transfer printing are among the hottest items selling at antique dealers now. And while your mother or grandmother may have paid a few bob for them in the Fifties, they are now selling for thousands. Kitsch rules. Royal Winton, described by […]

WEDNESDAY, 11.30AM: PRESIDENT Nelson Mandela has been warned by a traditional healer that his ancestors may be upset after he was attacked by a swarm of bees at his ancestral home in Qunu, Transkei, on Saturday. According to presidential aide Parks Mankahlana, Mandela was stepping out of a bath at his Qunu residence when a […]

WEDNESDAY, 5.00PM: SELF-confessed Inkatha Freedom Party hit squad member Brian Gcina Mkhize has told the Truth and Reconciliation Commission that he was one of a Caprivi-trained hit squad sent to kill African National Congress leaders in Esikhawini township near Eshowe, KwaZulu-Natal in 1991. Mkhize, who is serving a 20-year sentence for two murders in 1994, […]